13 - 14 May 2013
So the time has finally come to do this trip. I'm going to backpack around Europe for about 6 months with a stop over in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on the way. Time has flown this year, I remember NYE and thinking "Jeez, May is ages away" but here I am :D I haven't blogged much so hopefully I can make it an interesting read.
Crappy Locks
The first hiccup happened during bag check in. I bought a Black Wolf Cedar Breaks 75 bag and it came with two combination locks. I've used one a few times and it worked fine but I only used the second one for the first time when I packed for this trip. It turns out that the second one doesn't open with the new combination and that made it difficult when they asked me to get my shaver out. Luckily the locks are fairly crappy because I could easily bend the lock enough to get it off, open the bag and then bend it back on so of course I went and bought some new locks.
Being Searched
I managed to get selected for a "random" bomb test at the first checkpoint and a "random" body scan at the second checkpoint so that's a 2/2 with getting searched. I wonder how long I can keep the streak going?
The Flight
I flew out of Adelaide airport direct to Dubai with Emirates on a 777-300ER in peasant class. My family (and friend) came down to see me off and there were surprisingly few tears shed. The flight was about 13.5 hours, which is the longest I've done by far. The plane, food, entertainment, etc were all really good but the problem was I left at 10pm after being up for a full day and I can't sleep on planes so I was pretty wrecked by the time I got there. I did watch a few Dexter episodes and a few movies: Guilt Trip, Jack Reacher, Hansel and Gretel - Witch Hunters, Broken City and Parker. You can watch a lot of stuff in 13.5 hrs eh?
Dubai Airport
The customs counter in Dubai was surprisingly quiet. There were lots of desks and people sitting at roughly half of them but there didn't seem to be any rush to process people so it was slow going. There weren't any armed guards or any kind of locking doors, you just sort of wander through the whole thing. Getting my bag and finding my lift was really easy too. I had a private car (Cadillac) take me to the Arabian Park Hotel.
Sleep.....
I arrived at the hotel at about 6:30 and tried to check in but check in isn't until 2pm, no idea why that didn't click before now. I was way too tired to stay out all day so I bought an extra day, enjoyed the free brekky, then had a snooze for a few hours so I could function.
Burj Khalifa
Feeling much better after some sleep, I caught the free shuttle over to the Dubai Mall for my "At The Top" experience in the Burj Khalifa. The view from the top is pretty great and it feels really weird looking (significantly) down on other buildings that would be considered tall anywhere else. Afterwards I cruised around the massive Dubai Mall (1200 shops) and looked at the ice rink and aquarium, both INSIDE the mall. I also tried looking for a prepaid sim but that proved harder than I thought so I'll just survive with the free wifi in my room.
First Impressions
-everything is extremely clean
-there is a constant haze in the air that isn't pollution; it's off the charts humidity mixed with super fine sand
-most of the cars are almost brand new upper class cars. They're also left hand drive which is a bit weird at first
-there's a lot of different cultures here and they all get along fairly well
-the whole place is like a blank canvas of sand, if something isn't planted or built then it's just sand. My hotel is just kind of standing in the middle of a big sand paddock
-the roads are good quality, huge (up to 6 lanes in each direction) and there's not many traffic lights so it's quite fast to get anywhere
Now I'm here, sitting on my bed watching TV and looking out the window at my first night in Dubai.
So the time has finally come to do this trip. I'm going to backpack around Europe for about 6 months with a stop over in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on the way. Time has flown this year, I remember NYE and thinking "Jeez, May is ages away" but here I am :D I haven't blogged much so hopefully I can make it an interesting read.
Crappy Locks
The first hiccup happened during bag check in. I bought a Black Wolf Cedar Breaks 75 bag and it came with two combination locks. I've used one a few times and it worked fine but I only used the second one for the first time when I packed for this trip. It turns out that the second one doesn't open with the new combination and that made it difficult when they asked me to get my shaver out. Luckily the locks are fairly crappy because I could easily bend the lock enough to get it off, open the bag and then bend it back on so of course I went and bought some new locks.
Being Searched
I managed to get selected for a "random" bomb test at the first checkpoint and a "random" body scan at the second checkpoint so that's a 2/2 with getting searched. I wonder how long I can keep the streak going?
The Flight
I flew out of Adelaide airport direct to Dubai with Emirates on a 777-300ER in peasant class. My family (and friend) came down to see me off and there were surprisingly few tears shed. The flight was about 13.5 hours, which is the longest I've done by far. The plane, food, entertainment, etc were all really good but the problem was I left at 10pm after being up for a full day and I can't sleep on planes so I was pretty wrecked by the time I got there. I did watch a few Dexter episodes and a few movies: Guilt Trip, Jack Reacher, Hansel and Gretel - Witch Hunters, Broken City and Parker. You can watch a lot of stuff in 13.5 hrs eh?
Dubai Airport
The customs counter in Dubai was surprisingly quiet. There were lots of desks and people sitting at roughly half of them but there didn't seem to be any rush to process people so it was slow going. There weren't any armed guards or any kind of locking doors, you just sort of wander through the whole thing. Getting my bag and finding my lift was really easy too. I had a private car (Cadillac) take me to the Arabian Park Hotel.
Sleep.....
I arrived at the hotel at about 6:30 and tried to check in but check in isn't until 2pm, no idea why that didn't click before now. I was way too tired to stay out all day so I bought an extra day, enjoyed the free brekky, then had a snooze for a few hours so I could function.
Burj Khalifa
Feeling much better after some sleep, I caught the free shuttle over to the Dubai Mall for my "At The Top" experience in the Burj Khalifa. The view from the top is pretty great and it feels really weird looking (significantly) down on other buildings that would be considered tall anywhere else. Afterwards I cruised around the massive Dubai Mall (1200 shops) and looked at the ice rink and aquarium, both INSIDE the mall. I also tried looking for a prepaid sim but that proved harder than I thought so I'll just survive with the free wifi in my room.
First Impressions
-everything is extremely clean
-there is a constant haze in the air that isn't pollution; it's off the charts humidity mixed with super fine sand
-most of the cars are almost brand new upper class cars. They're also left hand drive which is a bit weird at first
-there's a lot of different cultures here and they all get along fairly well
-the whole place is like a blank canvas of sand, if something isn't planted or built then it's just sand. My hotel is just kind of standing in the middle of a big sand paddock
-the roads are good quality, huge (up to 6 lanes in each direction) and there's not many traffic lights so it's quite fast to get anywhere
Now I'm here, sitting on my bed watching TV and looking out the window at my first night in Dubai.
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| some goober taking a selfy |
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| a binocular computer thing at the top of the Burj Khalifa that you can point around to see various views of that spot (most of it used to be sand) |
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| the Burj Khalifa in the distance |
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| view from the top of the Burj Khalifa |
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| the view from my hotel room |
what??? are you kidding? Dave didn't shed a tear for you? of all the people we know will miss you the most ....
ReplyDeletehave fun babe
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